Levels Of Shade

LEVELS OF SHADE

Photo By T. Engberg With NPS

Plants require certain light conditions to look their best. For example, purple heart (Tradescantia) needs full sun to retain its purple leaf color. If it is kept in the shade, the leaves will become green. On the other hand, Himalayan sweet box (Sarcococca hookeriania var. humilis) does well in dense shade and does not tolerate full sun.

 

Bob Westerfield, UGA Extension Horticulturist, defines levels of shade as follows.

Full sun	unfiltered sunshine all day (eight to ten hours)
Light shade	shaded two to four hours during the heat of the day
Partial shade	area receives four to five hours of shade
Filtered shade	may be shaded all day but shafts of sun light squeeze through the branches
Full shade	shade lasts all day, some reflective light present
Dense shade	day long dark shade with no reflective light

Sunshine abundance differs across every garden and landscape. It is important to determine how much sun each area of your garden gets before adding new plants or creating a landscape design. When you’re calculating the amount of light your garden gets, don’t forget shrubs, trees and structures will provide shade in different places at different times of day. It is also important to note that the afternoon sun is stronger than the morning sun and is often not tolerated well by plants needing partial shade, especially here in Georgia.  

The easiest way to determine how much light your garden gets is to spend a day monitoring light levels. Start at 10 AM and check every two hours to see what level of shade you see in your garden. If you don’t have time to calculate the light in your garden over a full year, just remember that the sun remains closer to the horizon during winter and will cause even small structures to cast large shadows.

Other Resources:

Site Analysis - Drawing a Landscape Design

Landscape Plants for Georgia

Reference: Shade - Defining Levels of By Walter Reeves